Optio S5i

Optio S5i

Pentax Optio S5i Review

By
Movable Type Admin

Record Modes & Menu Options

Typical still image recording screen in the default Program AE shooting
mode. There's space for another 151 pictures on the SD card and the battery
level is full. In the center are the autofocus brackets.

When the shutter is half-pressed and the autofocus locks, the active AF
point will shrink and turn green. The shutter speed and aperture values are
also displayed.

Pressing the DISPLAY button will turn the color LCD on/off and also controls
how much information is overlayed on top of the live image. Here we have all
of the information enabled including the real-time histogram display.

To focus manually -- Press the Focus mode button until "MF"
is displayed and then adjust the focus distance by using the Up and Down positions of
the 4-way controller. When you are actively changing the focus, the center portion of
the LCD display is magnified and a distance scale is shown on the left.
The focus can also be locked at infinity.

One other focusing feature is the ability to freely move the active AF Area to any
one of the 49 possible positions within the frame.

Macro focus mode covers from 7.1 in. (0.18 m) to 1.64 ft (0.5m), while Super
Macro mode get you as close as 2.4 inches (0.06m).

3D mode helps you to capture two images with the proper offset so that they
can be printed and then viewed with the (now optional) stereoscopic viewing aid.

Panorama Assist mode lets you take a series of images and then join them to
create a panoramic image. There are four types of modes available: Join the
images on the left, right, top or bottom. After the first image is captured
you will see a transparent portion of the first image, this is used to achieve
the proper overlap for a good panoramic image. The images captured in Panorama
Assist mode can be "stitched" together using the supplied ACDSee software.

Movie mode lets you record motion JPEG at 320 x 240 resolution at 15fps,
monaural audio is also recorded. The length of movies is limited only by
available memory.

It also features a Time-lapse movie mode, which allows you to take movies at
a delayed frame rate. When they are played back, action appears sped up. It
is enabled via the Record menu (see above.) No sound is recorded.

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